The Fire's Center Read online

  Riona side-stepped him, but she knew he was furious enough to carry out this threat.

  Then suddenly he thought better of it. "Nay, I’ll just disgrace you. You came in this morning. I’ll tell Dr. Woulfe that you stole them," he laughed. "Unless of course you are prepared to be sweet to me again, the way you were the other day," he laughed mockingly.

  "Sweet to you? You disgust me. I should have broken your arm when I had the chance," she said, skirting around him, but unable to get past him. "I definitely have my answer now though, as to why you would ever want to work here when you clearly loathe the poor. You're a debauched opium addict."

  "Not as debauched as you'll be if you want to keep your post. So come here and show me your talents, you hot little—"

  As he reached for her breasts, a hand shot out of the darkness to grab his arm and spin him around.

  Riona gasped as Lucien growled, "Get your hands off her, and get out of here, now!"

  "I don’t know what you think you heard, but she was making advances to me, Dr. Woulfe. I have proof she's a thief--" Dr. O’Carroll began to protest.

  Lucien silenced him with a shake as he began to drag him to the front door of the clinic.

  "I’ve seen and heard more than enough to know that you're the last man who should ever be working in a clinic for the poor, or indeed anywhere else where decency and honesty are required. Now get out, and don’t even think of asking me for a reference. But before you leave, I insist you apologize to Miss Connolly for what you just called her!"

  "Apologize to that whore?" Dr. O’Carroll laughed.

  Lucien would have struck him then, but Riona, who had been hurrying after them, grabbed his fist in mid-air, and maintained, "I don’t need any apology. I don’t care what he said. Just let him go!"

  Lucien shook Dr. O’Carroll again. His towering rage caused him to struggle against Riona’s restraining hand. But in the end he let go. Dr. O’Carroll disappeared out of the door like a shot.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Once the foul Dr. O’Carroll was gone, Lucien leaned against the wall, panting heavily, while Riona brought his hand down to his side, and held it in silence.

  At last he looked down at her dishevelled appearance, and asked, "Are you all right?"

  "I’m fine. It’s a patient’s blood, not mine."

  "I don’t mean that, I mean what he said, about well, all those things..." Lucien rasped, his voice trembling.

  "I’m fine, really. I don’t pay any attention to what narrow-minded fools say, you ought to know that by now. Are you all right?" she asked, smiling up at him softly until he was tempted to stroke one auburn curl away from her cheek and bent to kiss her.

  But just then Breda came bustling though the corridor.

  Lucien jumped away as though he had been burnt.

  "The breakfasts are all done, the washing is well under way, and I can barely get them out of the tubs, they’re enjoying their baths so much."

  "Take that fancy soap the doctor here gave us out for the bathroom at the back, and let them use it. I have plenty more at home," Riona said.

  She caught Lucien looking down at her darkly.

  "Right, Miss Connolly, I'm going to do my round of the ward with Dr. Kennedy, who seems to be the only doctor still working here at the minute. Then I want to see you in my office, once you have tidied yourself up, of course," Lucien suddenly ordered, his expression grim. Before she had a chance to say a word, he stalked away.

  Riona looked down at her once-lovely dress with chagrin. The apron had done little to protect it from the oil, blood and others messes she had been exposed to. She went into the bathroom at the back and sponged it down as best she could, reinserted some hairpins to make her coiffure a bit more tidy, and then presented herself at his office door.

  "Please sit," he said with a small wave of his hand. "Now, I would like an explanation as to what's been going on here this morning."

  Riona wondered why he was in such a foul mood, but recounted simply and succinctly the state she had found the clinic in when she had arrived that morning.

  "And why were you here so early?" he demanded.

  "I couldn’t sleep, and I wanted to bring in some more of my medicines and herbs, to see if there were any new patients who could benefit from them. You had told me yourself last night that there had been several new admissions."

  "How in the name of God did you come to be at that woman’s birth?" he declared with barely suppressed rage.

  Riona bristled then. "None of the other doctors were here! They needed help. It was a difficult birth, twins, one a breach birth. One was even born blue, but we managed to save it."

  "No, we didn’t, you did," Lucien pointed out coolly.

  Riona looked at him blankly.

  "I was on the other side of the window. I saw the whole thing," he admitted.

  "Then if you saw it all, and that I did my best, why are you so angry?" Riona dared to ask him.

  Lucien couldn’t tell her it was because he had wanted to find her naked in bed beside him when he had awakened with the morning. Or that he half-believed the remarks Dr. O’Carroll had made about her encouraging him, even though the detestable man was not to be trusted.

  Instead he asserted, "Because you were simply meant to help with light tasks, not start doing surgery on the patients or arguing with my doctors and chasing them away. Nor do I want any young woman of mine being exposed to such horrors as drunks and women brawling, theft, drug abuse, scurrilous insults, prostitutes, and the gory details of child birth!"

  Riona’s mouth fell open in astonishment, but not a word came out. They both sat glaring at each other for a moment until she managed to gasp, "Are you trying to tell me that I'm your property? That you want to order me about, to run my life?

  "I don’t understand! Only yesterday, you wanted me to help you with your fever patient research. Now you want me to stay way from the clinic altogether? What on earth has changed?"

  Lucien looked away with a blush, and then Riona knew.

  "It’s because of last night, isn’t it?" she demanded. "We shared the most intimate of acts with each other last night. Now you think you have some sort of ownership and control over me. You want to treat me like some possession, a fragile piece of porcelain that should be locked away in a glass cabinet, ornamental, gracious, but for no one’s eyes or hands but yours?"

  Lucien reached out for Riona then, longing to kiss away the frown that had settled on her brow, and see the smiles she had been wreathed in the night before.

  She stepped out of his way. "Well, I have news for you, Lucien. I refuse to accept it! I have two hands, and whatever medical skills I possess. No matter what's happened between us, I'm not going to give up helping people just because you think I need to be protected. I’m not an innocent virgin any more, Lucien. You saw to that. So now that you’ve made me a woman, please allow me to act like one."

  Lucien winced at her words, and didn’t dare try to stop her as she stormed out of the room.

  My God, she was absolutely right. He had ruined her! In nine months’ time, it might be her in that bed giving birth. All because he had never once stopped to think that he was taking advantage of her position in his house, of her friendship for him, of her trust in him.

  Lucien rested his head in his hands, and groaned. But what could he do now? He couldn’t go back even if he wanted to.

  A tap at the door caused him to sit up straight, and Dr. Kennedy came in reluctantly.

  "I know this is none of my business," he said to Lucien without preamble, "but I can see you're angry with Riona. She doesn’t deserve your wrath. Dr. O’Carroll and I asked for her help. She was telling the truth. Dr. O’Carroll did say the woman was a prostitute and deserved whatever bad things happened to her. He did try to steal the drugs.

  "I must have fallen asleep, and for that I apologize. Riona didn’t take the drugs. She also saved that mother and those two children without any thought for who they were or where th
ey came from. It wouldn’t have mattered if they were the filthiest beggars on the streets. Riona would help anyone. I know you've lost Dr. O’Carroll, but with his sort of attitude, he didn’t really belong here.

  "I promise you I'll work extra shifts, and will talk to some of my friends who graduated with me to see if they would be willing to spare a few hours to help out here. Once I tell them about all the great work you're doing, I am sure they'll be only too glad to lend a hand."

  Lucien's brows knit. "Thank you. But first, would you mind telling me what you and O’Carroll were doing on duty all night? I made the duty roster only the other day, and I'm quite sure--"

  "Dr. O’Carroll switched with O’Shea because he had a dinner engagement with Ursula the day nurse, and I switched with Dr. Briggs because his mother is ill at the minute. No doubt O’Shea has probably debauched Ursula. I heard them taking bets on his chances with her and all the other women on this staff," Dr. Kennedy revealed, blushing.

  Lucien scowled blackly, but said nothing.

  "Only for Riona being here this morning, I don’t know what would have happened."

  "You’re just saying that to diminish my anger," Lucien accused.

  "No, I'm saying it because it’s true," Dr. Kennedy said with the nearest thing approaching emotion Lucien had ever seen from him. "Riona is a good woman, a natural healer. Just because she doesn’t have a medical certificate doesn’t mean she isn’t a good doctor. She behaved better than me and Dr. O’Carroll in the face of a crisis. Please don’t punish her for trying to help."

  Lucien sighed as he gazed at the earnest young man’s worried expression. "I won’t. Don’t worry, please. Now you go off home and get some sleep. I’ll see what I can do about getting us some more colleagues for this place, and possibly a few more nurses."

  "Will you let Riona stay on as nurse at least?"

  "She was meant to be the apothecary, as you well know. But I think perhaps in light of all that's happened today, we're going to have to undergo a few staffing changes, now aren’t we?" Lucien smiled thinly.

  Dr. Kennedy, satisfied, said, "Thank you, Dr. Woulfe," and disappeared out the door, leaving Lucien alone with his confused thoughts.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Much as Riona would have loved to obey Lucien’s orders about going straight home to rest, the clock on the top of Trinity College struck three just as the carriage rounded the corner and began to head for Merrion Square West.

  Only then did Riona recall that she should have been heading for Mrs. Allen’s house, and so she gave instructions to the coach driver to head to St. Stephen’s Green instead of Lucien’s house.

  Though she debated in her mind the wisdom of her course, Riona elected to go to Mrs. Allen’s her house exactly as she was.

  Let the old biddies be horrified, she thought with a toss of her dishevelled hair, as she rode on through Nassau and Dawson Street, across St. Stephen’s Green to her destination at Fitzwilliam Square. The clinic was about life and death, not social superiority and tea parties.

  An immaculately turned out butler opened the door to Riona, and raised one eyebrow when she refused to remove her cloak.

  "Ah, there you are, Miss Connolly!" Mrs. Allen called across the drawing room as she called the meeting to a halt. Then she frowned.

  "My dear, won’t you take off your cloak?"

  "I’ve just come from the clinic. I didn’t have time to change."

  "No matter, dear, no matter."

  "No really, Mrs. Allen, you don’t understand...."

  "Don’t be silly, dear, I'm sure we’ve seen an untidy gown before." Mrs. Allen waved away her objections airily.

  Shrugging, Riona stood up, and with a lift of her chin, she tossed the cloak off her shoulders and onto the back of the chair.

  "Oh my!" Mrs. Sturgess and several other ladies gasped in unison.

  "I had to help a woman with a breach birth, but both mother and babies are doing well," Riona informed the shocked assemblage.

  "But why didn’t the doctors..." Mrs. Allen gaped

  "Dr. Woulfe wasn’t there, and there were other patients to see, and only Dr. Kennedy and Dr. Briggs are worthy of the title anyway," Riona declared loudly, causing more gasps of shock, and this time outrage as well.

  Riona defended herself by arguing, "What good are most doctors when it comes to women’s troubles? Most poor women give birth without any doctor being present, and birthing was always women’s work. It is only now they tell us they have better qualifications, and that midwives are no use. If they are no use, they should be trained properly, in the same way a doctor is trained, that’s what I say."

  Many of the women looked shocked at the indelicacy of what had just been mentioned, but others nodded their heads in agreement.

  "I remember when my first one was born, the doctor told my mother and husband I would die, but she got one of the old midwives who had delivered the servants’ babies, and I was fine," Mrs. Sturgess revealed, much to the astonishment of the others.

  "Please, ladies, I didn’t mean to break up the meeting!" Riona apologized, but the chatter of the women about their own childbirth experiences went on for quite some time until eventually they turned back to the main purpose of the meeting, what the women could do through the ball and other charitable works to help the clinic.

  Some of the women left early to go home to their families, whilst Riona sat there taking notes, and praying she wouldn’t faint, so hot and stuffy was it in the room, and so disturbed was she by the trying events of the day.

  Riona was certainly glad that Dr. O’Carroll had gone, but she had a feeling it would not be the last they heard of him.

  Antoinette, though not at the meeting herself, soon got to hear of Riona’s exploits from one of the women who had left early, and gone over to her home just to tell her what decisions had been reached regarding the costume ball and fete.

  Anger and resentment seethed with in her. How dare Riona disturb the meeting with such theatrics, or criticise her betters such as the handsome Dr. O’Carroll, she though furiously as she went upstairs to dress for dinner.

  Ever since she had met Dr. O’Carroll at the opening to the clinic, he had called upon several occasions at her house, usually in the late afternoon or evening, when Quentin was often away on business or had a prior dinner engagement.

  Antoinette wouldn’t be surprised if he stopped in that evening. On the other hand, she couldn’t resist the opportunity to blacken Riona’s reputation in Lucien’s eyes if she possibly could.

  Dressing herself in her finest red silk evening gown, with a very revealing décolletage, and bedecking herself with emeralds from top to toe to match her cat-green eyes, she ordered her carriage to drive straight to Merrion Square West.

  Lucien had already got to hear of the meeting by the time Antoinette arrived, but he then received her further melodramatic embellishments, and a tongue lashing for allowing the little chit to get above her station.

  Finally, she urged Lucien to rid himself of Riona once and for all before she brought disgrace upon the whole family, and to reinstate Dr. O’Carroll at the clinic.

  Lucien, immune as ever to Antoinette’s obvious charms, which he saw had no doubt been amply displayed for his benefit, avoided the temptation to throw her out on her ear, and merely asked in a pleasant tone, "Where do you suppose Riona is now?"

  Though inwardly he was seething at the scene Riona had caused at Mrs. Allen’s, he was not going to give Antoinette the satisfaction of seeing his annoyance.

  Also, there was at least some consolation from the fact that she hadn’t revealed to everyone in Dublin that Dr. O’Carroll was a thief, and most likely a drug user or seller.

  "I suppose she must still be at Mrs. Allen’s," Antoinette said with a barely suppressed yawn as she slid closer to Lucien on the sofa.

  Lucien stood hastily then and asserted, "I’ll go and fetch her home safely, then. Thank you for telling me the news, Antoinette."

  "My pleasure.
" Antoinette smirked triumphantly as she swept out the door in a fog of perfume.

  Lucien went around immediately to Fitzwilliam Square and asked the butler, "Is Miss Connolly still here?"

  "Yes, sir, please come this way."

  At the door to the drawing room he was greeted by Mrs. Sturgess.

  She pounced immediately. "Dr. Woulfe, just the person I want to see."

  Lucien prepared himself for a further tongue-lashing from another irate female, but she informed him, "Riona has been telling us all about that poor woman this morning. We would like to see if some of the money for the clinic can be set aside for women and children, to train nurses and midwives in the community so they can help the poor themselves, perhaps even pass on the skills they gain to others," she revealed, explaining some of their ideas as she conducted Lucien into the drawing room.